


I See You

by blue_claw7



Category: Merlin (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Awesome Gwen (Merlin), Episode: s04e08 Lamia, Episode: s04e09 Lancelot du Lac, Fluff, Friendship, Gen, Gwen Knows About Merlin's Magic (Merlin), Gwen-centric (Merlin), Happy Ending, Light Angst, Merlin's Magic Revealed (Merlin), Past Gwen/Lancelot (Merlin), no beta we die like lancelot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-05
Updated: 2021-01-05
Packaged: 2021-03-15 18:46:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,428
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28568709
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/blue_claw7/pseuds/blue_claw7
Summary: Gwen disturbs the silence with a calm voice. “How did you lit up your torch?”It’s a simple question. The answer isn’t.In the aftermath of Lamia, as Gwen slowly caresses Elyan’s hair with a particular frown on her face, Merlin thinks he can hear the gears turning in her head.
Relationships: Gwen & Merlin (Merlin)
Comments: 23
Kudos: 166
Collections: Gwen Fest





	I See You

**Author's Note:**

> Written For GwenFest, Week 1. Apologies in advance for mistakes as English is not my mother tongue.

There is a comfortable silence in the small cottage. After what a nightmare last days have been, Merlin thinks both Gwen and he deserved it. The whole experience had been… well, _unsettling_ is a way of putting it. 

Merlin wraps a hand around Gwaine’s wrist for the Goddess knows how many times, feeling his steady and strong heartbeat between his fingers. They are back in the village, in a cottage that the villagers were kind enough to let them use for the injured knights. The sun is long set, they are far in the night. Only the sounds of deep breaths of the unconscious knights are heard. The remedy Gaius gave is working miraculously and there isn’t a need for Merlin to watch over the knights.

He wouldn’t be having any sleep anyway. 

From the looks of it, nor would Gwen. She is sitting beside Elyan, stubborn not to leave her brother, slowly caressing his sweat-filled hair.

“How are you?” Merlin asks going over the small table, mindlessly collecting the empty bottles. 

“I was about to ask you the same question.” 

“I’m fine,” he replies almost automatically. “Fine,” he says again with a small nod that wasn’t meant for Gwen. His eyes catch the shadows dancing on the wall before him, cast by the candle lights. The candle reminds him of fire and fire reminds—

Merlin manages to turn to Gwen with a cheeky grin. “Thanks to my beautiful knight in shining armour.” 

Gwen stops caressing Elyan’s head for a beat, looking at him incredulously and then ducks her head, giving a little delightful laugh. 

“I’m serious,” he presses on with a genuine smile forming on his face hearing the laugh he missed, “you could shame all those rough tough knights of Camelot.”

“Now you are exaggerating.”

“I hardly think so.” Merlin stops, the momentary happiness disappearing with the silence hanging for too long. Gwen’s shoulders are slouched almost carrying a weight, perhaps because of the angle, perhaps because of the exhaustion, she seems… Tired. 

Almost old. 

“You have been amazing these last few days.” She had been through much, shouldering too much yet standing as tall as she always was.

“I think _you_ have been amazing.” Merlin gives half a breath, half a laugh averting her eyes. He can feel her worried eyes on him. “You had the worst of it.”

“Nah,” Merlin shrugs. “Honestly, it wasn’t half of what I put up with Arthur’s training.”

He knows it isn’t. The men Lamia created out of his friends had been outright terrifying. He knows no physical pain could come near their once-friendly, now hostile eyes directed at him. It almost felt like a small foreshadow of what it could have been if they ever found out about his magic. 

“You know they didn’t mean any of those words, don’t you?” Gwen says hitting right in his heart. It burns, hotter than fire shoved at his face. He, of course, knows this. He knows this, just…

It is now all too easy to picture those hostile looks in some other situation.

“I know,” he says. “It’s not their fault. They had no control over it, it was all Lamia. Being control under something is an awful situation to be.” 

Out of the corner of his eye, he sees Gwen wince as her hand goes to her neck. Merlin fully turns to her. Sympathetic pain goes over in her eyes, then she frowns.

His words reminded her of something he quite couldn’t follow.

“Merlin,” she says slowly, almost warily, “I never asked how you got out of Fomorrah’s spell. Gaius had said it would keep growing but then you left and came back fine ever since.” 

‘I changed into my 80 years old self with magic, then had a very magical fight with Morgana to destroy the magical mother beast’ is an answer with too much magic in it. 

“Gaius had found a specific herb that could kill it off for good. I went to collect it,” Merlin says casually. 

Gwen half raises her eyebrows in disbelief.

“I still don’t understand it, Merlin.” Gwen returns to caressing Elyan’s hair. “Why weren’t _you_ affected? You said I wasn’t because I was a woman, and all her victims have been men. But it just…makes no sense. You are the only exception.” 

Gwen is many things. She is compassionate, kind, loyal, wise and brave. Even if she had changed in time from the shy and half-awkward girl he met to a confident woman, she still has the same good heart at her core. She deeply cares about everyone and everything, which makes her a very observant person.

It is not coming handy now.

Gwen is many things, but she is not stupid. She’d been one of two people to figure out something was wrong with him when he as under Morgana’s enchantment. She’d been the one to understand Morgana was not on their side way before, yet kept playing along with it. She’d been the one to sneak Leon out of Camelot. She is the farthest thing from stupid. 

Fear rips through him. She’ll figure it out if he slips. The answer is easy, saying it, isn’t easy.

He can’t believe not getting seduced is going to be his demise of _all_ things.

I have never felt attracted to anyone that way, or, or, I have secretly been a woman this whole time, Merlin frantically wants to say. He feels Gwen wouldn’t mind that. At least, mind less than ‘Oh, I have magic which was stronger than hers.’

Something must have faltered on his face, Gwen adds quickly. 

“Not that I would want you to get affected! Having you by my side was a blessing.” Her soft smile warms his heart through the darker thoughts clouding in his head. “I’m not sure what I would have done without you. But it just… makes no sense.”

“I don’t know.” Merlin shrugs. “My luck, I suppose.”

Gwen shakes her head. 

“There has to be a reason. Arthur talked about the slave traders. Out of all those traders, knights, villagers… _Only you_.” Merlin tries not to fidget under her look. Her eyes are locked on him as if she is digging through his lies. Seconds seemed to stretch into minutes under her gaze. 

His heart sinks. Merlin knows that face, that particular face. The gears turning in her head can almost be heard.

Gwen disturbs the silence with a calm voice. “How did you lit up your torch?”

It’s a simple question.

When they were following Lamia in the castle, he had no choice but to use magic to lit his torch back. He had done pretty obvious magical things in front of other people, yet none else had realized something so minor.

His heart skips a beat.

“It hadn’t gone out completely,” Merlin manages throat dry.

“I was right in front of you, Merlin. I was _terrified_ , it had gone full dark. Then I looked around and there was nothing that you could have used to lit it up.” Worry seeps through her voice, almost as if she is scared of the answer. 

“We have always been very, very lucky,” he says with a half nervous laugh.

They were the wrong words.

Merlin realizes this too late as Gwen’s face freezes. He suddenly hates how quiet the cottage is, Gwen must be hearing his racing heart.

“I suppose we are,” Gwen murmurs after a too-long beat, returning to caressing Elyan’s hair. She is not even blinking. 

She is finding all the pieces, Merlin thinks frantically. She is finding it all and she’ll piece them together. 

What will she do when she figures it out?

Will her loving eyes look at him with hostility? Will… Will he have to leave Camelot? He can’t, not when everything is at stake with Morgana looming over them, not with Agravaine getting more and more aggressive and he can’t leave his friends behind, Arthur behind and—

Merlin can’t stand it. He returns to the bottles on the table, arranging and rearranging the empty bottles again and again. They clatter between his shaking hands. 

“I was so sure Morgana was the one to put the poultice,” Gwen says suddenly. “She had been the one to led Uther to Arthur and me during the picnic. I was suspicious and saw her do magic earlier. She was the one to put the poultice, I was sure that I was going to die. We all knew Arthur wasn’t enchanted. It was her game. I spoke with you too.” Silence hangs in the air.

“Then, out of nowhere, an old man gets caught.”

The cottage is too small. Everything is too much, his mind begins to sprint all the roads their conversation can take. 

“Is that the kind of luck you are talking about?”

Merlin opens his mouth to answer, but no sound comes out of it. His voice will betray him if his words won’t. But wouldn’t be silence still an answer, a confirmation of—

“Or is it the kind of luck that my father was the only one to heal from that sorcery caused sickness? What a luck that the sorceress chose to heal _my_ father so that supposedly the blame would fall on me but we all made it out fine in the end.” The silence is suffocating now. 

This is the end, she has figured it out.

“Because if that is the luck you are talking about, it started when _you_ came.” The bottle slips between his hands. 

Merlin turns to her with a shaky breath as the bottle shatters. Her chest is racing up and down, eyes wide staring at him.

The elephant in the room doesn’t need to be addressed.

She knows.

Merlin reflexively takes a step back as his mind screams at him. He opens his mouth to say something, but nothing comes out of his slightly trembling lips.

“Gwen,” he says with a laugh but it more sounds like a cry. “I don’t…” he begins, perhaps, perhaps he can deny, he can laugh it off, joke it till the line between joke and reality disappears but, but Gwen is looking at him dead serious, she knows, there is no fooling her.

“Please…” he manages with a pitiful voice. Perhaps she will...

No, she won’t, not when she lost too much to magic. Not when Morgana turned on them, not when she saw the destruction magic caused on Camelot, on her family, on _herself_ —

Gwen gets up, matching teary eyes. Merlin is watching her every feature, every muscle, how everything is going to crumble down—

Gwen lunges on him. Suddenly, she crosses the few steps between them and her arms are around him, pulling him into a firm hug. 

His mind goes blank. 

“Thank you,” she shakily whispers to his ear and all the air leaves his body. With a choking breath, he too wraps his arms around her. It can’t be real, he thinks, but isn’t it Gwen hugging him even when she figured out—

“Just…” he begins but the words can’t leave his throat. “Just so that— What did you…” Merlin trails off. 

“You have magic,” Gwen whispers with an even lower voice. His knees go weaker. It is too good to be true, it’s like floating in bliss, yet there is a feeling like a disaster is coming. It’s too bad. It never ends well. 

It never ended well.

“N—” Gwen hugs him tighter, the denial disappearing between his lips. Hope is blossoming instead.

“And you are…” Merlin doesn’t realize he isn’t forming full sentences anymore, yet Gwen understands him.

“Of course,” she says softly. “You are Merlin.”

He wants to cry and shout and hug her for the rest of his life yet Merlin can’t bring himself to do anything more than a few incoherent voices escaping from his lips. It was better than he could have ever hoped for. His arms unconsciously tighten around her. To have this moment with his best friend, to feel the acceptance in her warm arms, he is not letting this go.

The hole in his heart seems to fill for the first time after Lancelot and Will’s death.

Remembering their death, Merlin backs up with a gulp. Gwen is still half holding his arms, remnants of tears visible on her cheeks.

“I am sorry you are burdened with my secret now.”

Gwen might have been accepted him -that on itself still feels like a dream he fears waking up- but she is unwillingly thrust into carrying his burden. It is a little game of half-truths and lies that hurt the most to say. He knows Gwen, her loyalty and her kind heart, yet he again knows her love for Camelot and Arthur. 

His secret and Arthur doesn’t exactly go hand in hand.

“Burdened? Merlin, you are the burdened one here.” Merlin looks at her eyes and meets with genuine sincerity. “I’m sure you learnt it so you could help in your own way, and you did.” 

His smile starts to hurt and fade away. 

“You did,” Gwen says as Merlin watches tears form in her eyes again. 

The desperation in her words and the reality slaps him left and right, how she lived in Camelot her whole life, served right in the Castle and had to listen to Uther’s propaganda, yet trying to fight the instinct to flinch, fighting what she was taught. 

A corruption. 

Pure evil.

That’s what she must know.

“I was born with it,” he blurts out and watches horrified as Gwen’s face freezes. She zones out, thinking something he can’t quite follow.

“I see,” is all she says after moments of silence that seemed like centuries to him.

“Oh, Merlin.” Well, he wasn’t accepted to be pulled into another hug but Merlin doesn’t mind it at all. He can feel Gwen’s breath near his ear. “Why did you come to Camelot of _all_ places?”

A very reasonable question. 

“Does anyone else know?” Merlin stills. Gwen backs up, searching his eyes with worry.

“Gaius and my mother,” he says after a gulp. “They are the only ones left.” 

Her mouth slightly opens.

“Oh, that… That friend of yours…”

“Will,” Merlin completes and saying his name _pains_. 

“He took the blame for me.” Gwen looks at her with sympathy, his pain matching in her eyes. “And… There is something you should know. About Lancelot.”

It is a still sour wound for both of them, yet Merlin can’t _not_ say it after watching Gwen blame herself for months. 

“Did he knew?” He barely hears Gwen. 

“It was my fault,” Merlin blurts out. “Not yours. It wasn’t your fault. It was mine. I… It should have been me. I should have saved him, I should have found a way, I should have understood his plan, I—”

“Merlin,” Gwen cuts in. “You did all you could. It was his choice.”

“No.” He shakes his head. “You blamed yourself for months because of a promise. Don’t say that to me, you don’t even believe yourself to that. And I was _right there_ —“ His voice begins to tremble, the Veil that never left his nightmares comes before his eyes.

Gwen squeezes his arm. 

“I understand. But Lancelot wouldn’t want you to blame yourself.”

“I know. It doesn’t make it any better.” A silence follows.

“You have been through so much, all alone.” Her voice is heavy and Merlin sees in her eyes that from now on, that’ll change. 

He tries to smile.

“Well,” Gwen tries to laugh seeing him, although it resembles more of a cry. “Lancelot always had a very bad habit of leaving being so noble and all.”

The tried joke should have fallen flat, and Merlin can only give a choking laugh. Gwen presses her lips, perhaps to stop crying or stop herself from laughing. Her brow pinches, and a funny look appears on her face. Merlin this time laughs. Gwen looks at him incredulously and that makes him laugh again. He is not even sure why on the name of the Triple Goddess he is laughing. 

It becomes a spiral of madness, uncontrollable waves of laughter and cries blending together until he is somehow crying and laughing at the same time. It dims down after some time, leaving only a bitter taste on his tongue. 

“I want you to tell everything to me. You can safely talk to me. I don’t know much but— Of course, not… not the stuff if you don’t want to say, I am not pressuring you into anything, don’t ever feel that—” 

“Gwen,” Merlin cuts in seeing her getting nervous. Gwen stops, looking in his eyes.

“I don’t want you to feel you are alone anymore.”

“Thank you.” At some point in time, he must have done something to be blessed by having Gwen as a friend.

“Thank _you_. For all you have done.”

But Gwen seems to be bothered, biting her lip and thinking about something. She pulls her arms from him and a knot ties in his stomach.

“I have to ask you something, it might not be the right time, actually it surely isn’t the right time, perhaps I should save it for later but I wondered for so long. Did magic start with nightmares? Is it…like Morgana?”

Of _all_ the things—

“Do you…” Her eyes close as if she is remembering a painful memory. “Do you have nightmares? Like… Like Morgana used to. Is that how it started for you?”

“No, it didn’t,” Merlin manages. “She is a Seer.”

Suddenly, he is carried away to years ago, a younger Morgana crying for help.

“I wondered for so long. I knew it was Morgause’s fault, she was unrecognizable when she came back but I always remembered her nightmares and I kept _wondering_. I never knew but… Sometimes, the things she said came true. I-I didn’t know what to think of it—” 

She’ll hate him, she’ll hate him, she’ll hate him—

“Morgana is my fault too.” There is a long beat before Gwen says something.

“I’m sure it is not.” Merlin closes his eyes.

“It is. I did things Gwen, and sometimes they were really, really bad; sometimes they weren’t _enough_.”

With the feeling of a hand brushing his arm, Merlin opens his eyes.

“I will be here to listen if you want to—”

“You’ll hate me,” he desperately says.

“You know, I blamed myself for what Morgana became for a long time.” Her eyes return to the floor and Merlin wonders how could he have _possibly_ missed her feeling like this. “But the things she did Merlin, the innocents she murdered, cannot be excused no matter what. In the end, you cannot blame yourself for her bad decisions. Knowing Morgana and her impulsiveness, some might have even started as not bad decisions but decisions with consequences damned.”

There isn’t a heavy weight lifting off his shoulders right away, but breathing seems much more enjoyable.

“It will be better,” Gwen says with a smile. ”Have faith.” 

That and following nights, her light seeps into his nightmares. 

Gwen was freaking out. 

True, she had been freaking out all along with her talk with Merlin, but now as she lay in her bed in Camelot, her mind was racing and she was freaking _more_ out. 

The fear of messing it up, taking one wrong step, saying one wrong word when everything was so delicate...

Morgana had felt like she was slipping between her fingers, now she’ll do anything to cling to Merlin and never _ever_ let him go.

Gwen remembers Morgana and her nightmares, getting more and more frequent as she got older. She remembers her screams and thrashings, she remembers the feeling of her trembling shoulders buried in her chest. 

She could have saved her. 

It is easy to remember how Morgana used to be before she was filled with hatred until there was no more of Morgana. Perhaps she could have…

Why hadn’t Morgana told her? 

Could she have changed anything if Morgana had? 

Gwen wishes she had made it clear that Morgana could trust her. All could have… True, she didn’t know much about magic but it _can’t_ be bad. She would have helped her, even if she couldn’t, perhaps... 

Her smirk comes to her mind, the one she saw as she was carried by the guards to the dungeons.

Why did Morgana hate her so much?

It is a tragedy how they all drifted apart. 

The Morgana she once knew _must_ be in somewhere, the compassion that used to fill her heart must still exist. She wants to believe that. Her chest feels heavy, perhaps, perhaps she can do what she should have done years ago, perhaps Morgana…

Gwen doesn’t know what could have been done to prevent from this reality happening or if the love and compassion that used to fill Morgana’s heart can reblossom. 

But from now on, it _will_ change for Merlin.

She’ll make that.

Merlin quite literally, feels himself floating in a bliss. The smiles they share with Gwen holds something much more now. It all seems too good to be true.

Merlin doesn’t want to think what might happen if his secret is ever out, if Arthur learns Gwen knew… No matter, he’ll never know. Now, he has Gwen. 

Then Lancelot comes.

He should have known it was too good to be true.

Gwen tries to keep her face straight as Lancelot- No, that is not Lancelot; something, a shell of who he used to be. He extends the bracelet to her and her mind screams _wrong, wrong, wrong_ over and over again. It burns her skin.

As Lancelot leaves, she throws the bracelet to the farthest corner of the room. 

It had been nothing but cruel for everyone to lose Lancelot again. 

It was painful to look at him knowing that that wasn’t the man she once loved, the friend she had. Everything that made Lancelot Lancelot, his good heart, his hope, his warmness, his nobility, everything stripped away, leaving them with a broken shell of him. 

And all for what? 

She knows what it is for and doesn’t want to think what would have happened if Merlin couldn’t tell him what was wrong with Lancelot. 

Gwen wonders how and when Morgana became this, when did she starting hating her _so much_. Her mind wanders, what had she done wrong that led to this.

Merlin hadn’t understood why she wanted to meet with that baby dragon. True, her last instance with dragons hadn’t been very… _Joyful_ , but it _is_ a baby dragon this time, one that cannot be left with the other dragon. She wants to meet the Druids and other people with magic, she wants to help, she wants to learn this time. 

Gwen wants to right the wrong.

And she’ll have the opportunity. The wedding is only postponed due to the events. 

Suddenly, Arthur’s ring on her finger feels heavier. 

Arthur will learn one day. She won’t push Merlin for anything, no matter how much Merlin himself feels guilty. Gwen knows Arthur will see it as a betrayal after everything he has been through. But she also _knows_ if Arthur turned into a great king and a man from the arrogant prince once she knew, Gwen is sure the prejudice in his head will be cleansed. She has complete faith in him. Arthur cares about the people of Camelot more than anything, even his father. Gwen remembers the Druid boy Arthur helped to smuggle out of Camelot with Morgana and Merlin.

It had been good times, the four of them.

She knows what she wants to do, to right the wrongs and this time, she can be more than a mouth whispering words to the higher people. 

She can _do_ the right thing. 

That night, Gwen dreams.

She is not a Seer like Morgana but she doesn’t need to be one. Years pass by and as she stands in the newly decorated room -despite the loudest arguments-, she knew she’d make that dream come true.

“I can’t believe Arthur is forcing me to wear this _stupid_ hat.”

“Merlin,” Gwen says trying to be exasperated, but she is biting her tongue not to burst into a laugh. It is a sight to be seen. Merlin is tugging there and there of his robe.

It is no matter, he could go in naked and the hat _-_ that _hat_ \- would have all the attention.

“Why do I get to wear a hat? Even Morgana wouldn’t make me wear this hat. Maybe I should resign and join her instead.”

“No, because she’d make the hat out of you.” Gwen laughs. Things had changed, true, but another arm didn’t grow from one cut. Well, at least Morgana wasn’t trying to kill them or usurp the throne anymore. She seemed quite happy on the Isle, rebuilding what was lost with others, in the small Isle of Avalon. 

Merlin turns to her with a very serious face.

“Guinevere Pendragon, swear on our friendship that you won’t kiss him once I turn him into a toad.” 

“I solemnly swear. Though, you must consider if you want your first act as the Court Sorcerer to be turning the King into a toad.” 

“That’s exactly how I want to be remembered.” Merlin gives a serious nod. 

“I have to go now,” Gwen says, the timing almost an instinct to her. She has no plans of stealing Merlin’s entrance.

Merlin gets nervous the _second_ she mentions it.

“You’ll be amazing,” she reassures him as she parts to take her place at the Round Table. 

After a brief speech of Arthur’s, the throne room’s door’s are wide open. 

Merlin stares at the room revealed in front of him.

She knows the feeling, the normally short and familiar distance stretching beyond the horizon before him and his legs getting jiggly with every step. He has to be confident from the outside, even if he is freaking out and feeling out of place inwardly. 

Gwen raises her chin and straightens her shoulders, Merlin matches her almost instantly. 

She hides a little smile. Merlin had done the same for her in her first court meeting. Locking her eyes with Merlin’s, who was standing right behind Arthur had been her only way to walk that awful road without tripping and making a very ungraceful entrance. 

“Welcome to our new Court Sorcerer, Merlin.” Merlin bursts into a wide grin, dignity and everything flying out of the window as soon as Arthur gestures to the empty seat by his right hand. “Take your place.”

**Author's Note:**

> The heading was supposed to be the flowers Gwen gives to Merlin in s01e03: The Mark of Nimueh but oh well, like with everything of this fic, I just went with it.  
> Hope you liked it!


End file.
